Didnt really fully understand what your asking mate but hopefully i can give some info

My carrier or network provider is vodafone and that who i bought the phone from originally. Since then i havent unlocked the phone or anything so dont know if other sim cards will work in it. - Hope that part helps

Do a search on EBay Vodafone unlock. There is this guy can factory unlock it for 6.99 . Once you are unlocked you need not worry about baseband and you can restore to whatever firmware apple no longer signs if you have saved blobs .

Do a search on EBay Vodafone unlock. There is this guy can factory unlock it for 6.99 . Once you are unlocked you need not worry about baseband and you can restore to whatever firmware apple no longer signs if you have saved blobs .

so i have to unlock the phone before updating?? this is more confusing than i thought lol

No if your iPhone is locked to a carrier and you do not need unlock, restoring to stock fw updates baseband.
If your current baseband is already unlock able by Ultrasn0w , you must preserve this baseband by restoring to custom fw which is even more confusing .
Factory unlock is done remotely and you will be notified . Once you are notified by the unlocker you can update as normal update .

No if your iPhone is locked to a carrier and you do not need unlock, restoring to stock fw updates baseband.
If your current baseband is already unlock able by Ultrasn0w , you must preserve this baseband by restoring to custom fw which is even more confusing .
Factory unlock is done remotely and you will be notified . Once you are notified by the unlocker you can update as normal update .

thanks for the help and advice iyeow but for the time being i dont relly want to unlock the phone plus i can probably get it done for cheaper from few shops right next to where i live

How can i check if my phone is locked only to vodafone?? more than likely it is so if i update ot 5.1.1. what is the worse that can happen if i dont unlock it yet as that might waste more of my time.

I thought i could update the phone to 5.1.1 either by downloading the update from the apple website or even through cydia as on the top line it says shsh 5.1.1 - so does that mean cydia has already saved the shsh blobs for me?

Yes you have 5.1.1 blobs which means you can update to that firmware. What yeow is trying to say if ya update ya phone to 5.1.1 and ya baseband updates which it will ya phone will be an iPod till ya git it unlocked.

Yes you have 5.1.1 blobs which means you can update to that firmware. What yeow is trying to say if ya update ya phone to 5.1.1 and ya baseband updates which it will ya phone will be an iPod till ya git it unlocked.

so even though i am with vodafone (who i got the phone from) and will be staying with them and not changing my provider when i update my phone from 4.0.1 to 5.1.1 the modem firmware (baseband) will defintely change so i cant use it as a phone??